I saw you last

in the Garden of Eden,

fig leaf hanging vivid at your lips;

pomegranate, sugar-caked, ripened in your fingers,

slipping to fall at the sandaled feet of a pedestal-seraph.

Statue-prophet of the heavens, magnum opus di Michelangelo,

turn thy marble brow.

Just look at me, you sculpted angel;

enchant me, David;

O Ares, sweet Ares,

take this limp Aphrodite in granite-lined hands.

Drape her in a chariot of a gold-gilt inferno

and ride, you luminary, ride to the dawn,

ride to the knife-edge of horizon’s lip

where Bacchus streaks the night’s palette with balmy grapes.

Ringlets of ravenlocks wreathed at your temples,

temples drenched in libations of cherub kisses and wine,

a nose’s bridge like that of the ivory pedestal

of amorous sacrifice

where I left you a fleet-winged dove, a silken sparrow,

and the heart of a girl;

a nymph’s token of devotion.

I’ll tilt the sapphired chalice at your lips

if only to ponder the immaculate eyes of Eros himself.

But for this Age, Adonis, I leave you among the cypress groves,

as a marble bust and nothing more.